Gas field threat looms over Yalgorup National Park

Residents want a gas lease at the parkland to be removed.

Peel residents are pleased the State Government planned to expand the Yalgorup National Park but still hold concerns about a gas exploration lease covering the area. 

Last week over a thousand hectares of land was included in Class A Conservation by the State Government. 

Gasfield Free Peel spokesperson Barb Brewerton said the government had acknowledged the internationally recognised biodiversity value of the park and surrounding area by agreeing to expand it, yet it appeared to have turned a blind eye to the threat of gas mining hanging over the park.

“A gas lease covers the vast majority of Yalgorup National Park, which means it could end up being nothing more than a gasfield,” she said.

The group want to see Yalgorup National Park off limits to the gas industry and say a cancellation of Exploration Lease 480 would help end any threat of fracking in the area. 
 
“We applaud the government’s decision to expand the national park and to ensure it is protected from land developers but we want them to act to also protect it from the onshore gas industry," Ms Brewerton said. 
 
“Yalgorup National Park is a jewel in the crown of the Peel region and a crucial area for the protection of the endangered Carnaby’s cockatoo and the threatened western ringtail possum as acknowledged by the government.
 
“The area also includes the Peel-Yalgorup Ramsar listed wetlands.... This area of high conservation value so close to Perth is incompatible with the development of a gasfield.”
 
A spokesperson for Lock the Gate Alliance in WA, Jane Hammond, said the gas lease covered more than 1,380 sq-km of the Peel region including the Yalgorup National Park.
 
“The company holding the exploration permit is scheduled to spend $4.5 million on an exploration well in the lease in the next 14 months and the location of that well could potentially be within the National Park," she said. 

Ms Hammond said there was precedent for excising land from a gas lease meaning there was hope the company behind the Peel lease will make a similar decision and at least excise the valuable area. 

"In 2014 the world-famous Pinnacles were excised from a Mid-West gas lease following a public outcry so there is a precedent for this sort of protection from gas development," she said. 

Earlier in December 2017 the McGowan Government announced a permanent ban on fracking in the Peel, South-West and Perth regions but it did not cover the threat of gas field developments in national parks.

“While the state government has instituted a fracking ban covering the Peel, South West and Metro regions it has not put an end to the threat of gasfield developments in these regions nor in national parks, private land and other culturally and environmentally significant areas," Ms Hammond said.